a Small regret...

Whilst in Africa, we tried not to buy too much stuff to dust. You know how it goes, you travel somewhere you know you'll never be again, and all of a sudden you feel as if you've got to bring home every little souvenir you see-to remember your trip, right? Well, when you get home, your souvenir takes up valuable space and lots of your time because you have to dust it again and again. A waste of money-and not so much a reminder of your experience as you thought it would be....

we were careful. We brought precious little home in comparison to all the goods the merchants tried to sell us. And I feel happy, overall, that our purchases were tasteful and tactful and that when I dust them I do actually have a second to remember the things we experienced in Africa (o.k., that is when I actually get around to dusting..)

I do have a few small regrets regarding purchases not made. I would have liked to have "shopped" Capetown a bit more for a piece of art that would fit nicely in our home. The Cape is the best Art town in Africa, and our trips there were just not the type that allowed for strolling galleries. I also wish I had bought the huge rhino you see in the picture above. It was expensive and utterly does NOT fit with our family's decor, but the creativity of the piece was so intriguing, and it would go perfectly in my closet.

You see, the pieces in the photo are made from the souls of flip flops. Yep, you read right. Coastal dwellers pick up the flip flops that wash up on the beaches, remove the souls, press them together into huge blocks of multi-colored foam, and carve away. Awesome if you ask me. The coolest form of recycling. And I missed it-darn. Especially since flip flops are somewhat of a collection of mine, I feel I go lacking because the foam carved rhino is not seated comfortably next to my huge bucket of flip flops in my dressing room (no, I don't really have a room for dressing, but I do have this box of a closet where my stuff hangs and a light turns on in there, and a door shuts me in so i can change when I need some privacy; so I call it a dressing room...)

lots of times I've felt buyer's remorse, knowing that I would have been better off with the money I spent on something I hold in my hot little hands-but in this case, I have the reverse, I wish I'd shelled out the cash for the completely unnecessary but intensely cool flip flop rhino.